Forecasters at the National Weather Service said on Friday that a “wildfire outbreak appears likely today” with dangerous fire weather conditions across a broad slice of the southern Great Plains and a portion of the Southwest and even into the Midwest.

Before noon local time, several fires were already visible on satellite in the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma, and more were expected, said Emily Thornton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.

“The situation is unfolding right now,” Ms. Thornton said late Friday morning. “It is incredibly dangerous.”

A strong storm barreling across the country drove gusty winds and dry air across the desiccated landscape of eastern New Mexico and Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Any wildfires that start could spread rapidly in this region.

The winds were expected to be strongest and the fire risk highest in an area extending from northern Texas across central Oklahoma into southeast Kansas and including a smidgen of Missouri. A wind gust of 83 miles per hour was recorded in Amarillo, Texas, early Friday.

The Storm Prediction Center warned that conditions would be “extremely critical,” a rare designation that has been used on three other occasions this month in the southern Plains. It was most recently issued on Wednesday, but for a smaller area than the one on Friday. It’s typically used only once or twice a year in the southern Plains.

Isolated dry thunderstorms passed through Oklahoma early Friday, and Ms. Thornton said more were likely later today in eastern Kansas, western Missouri and far northwest Arkansas. Dry thunderstorms can generate thunder and lightning but produce little to no rain on the ground. Any lightning strike that hits the ground can easily start a wildfire, especially when it’s windy.

Separately, the National Weather Service has released fire weather watches and red-flag warnings across the Southwest and the southern Plains. (Fire weather risk levels describe how actively a fire may burn, and an “extremely critical” risk corresponds to weather that can make a fire extremely difficult to contain.)

On Thursday, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas preemptively issued a state of emergency declaration and urged “everyone across the state to use extreme caution and avoid burning.”

The winds kicked up dust on Friday, and the Weather Service issued blowing dust warnings across the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma. Dust storms could spread across the region.

Aaron Ward, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Amarillo said visibility was “nearly zero” in the greater Amarillo region. The Texas Department of Public Safety said it was responding to multiple crashes across the region because of low visibility from clouds of dust.

Dormant grasses in southern Plains are “ready to burn.”

Heightened wildfire risk has occurred intermittently in the southern Plains all month, which isn’t unusual in winter, when dry, blustery weather is common. Grasses are also dormant and more flammable at this time of year.

“It’s not until April when our grasses start to green up when the fire risk decreases,” said Evan Bentley, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center. “The grasses are essentially like dry timber, ready to burn, right now.”

While some parts of the region, including central Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, received rain in the last seven days, the grass and shrubbery are likely to have already dried out in these areas.

Firefighters from the Texas A&M Forest Service have responded to 75 fires since the start of the month, compared with 21 in the same time frame last year. Mr. Bentley said this year had been “unusually active” with fire weather.

The fire weather conditions are expected to continue through the weekend and into next week but were especially high on Friday because of the cross-country storm.

The system that walloped California with rain and snow and spawned a tornado earlier this week was moving eastward on Friday, propelling strong winds into the southern Plains. Sustained winds of 35 to 45 m.ph. are expected to be common across the region on Friday, with isolated gusts up to 70 mph and up to 90 mph in the most extreme cases.

“It’s the top of the scale of what you can get for winds,” Mr. Bentley said.

On Saturday, the wildfire threat will remain, and it is expected to be most severe in southern and southwest Texas, an area of the state that is in a drought. Conditions could be slightly improved Sunday, before the threat returns to the southern Plains on Monday and Tuesday with increased winds.

“It’s that season,” Mr. Bentley said. “It s expected to remain active for the foreseeable future across the southern Plains.”

Mitch Smith contributed reporting.